Diamond Sutra & Printing *

Excerpt from the book "Paper" by Mark Kurlansky

www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/prajparagen2.pdf

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Dinesh ^club

The "Diamond Sutra" s a popular example of Buddhist writing in which the Buddha lectures Subhuti, his aging disciple, on the nonexistence of everything. Repeatedly, the Buddha enjoins his students to make copies of his book and pass them around. Buddha says "Whatever place constitutes a repository for the sacred scripture, there also the Lord Buddha may be found." Copying the 'Diamond Sutra' therefore became a way of "gaining merit." In it, Buddha also says, "If a good disciple whether man or woman, in the morning, at noonday and eventide, sacrificed, sacrificed lives innumerable as the sands in the Ganges, and thus without intermission throughout infinite ages; and if another disciple, hearing this scripture proclaimed, steadfastly believed it, his felicity would be appreciably greater than the other."

So, as these excerpts make clear, a Buddhist would b e interested in the process of duplication and naturally drawn to printing. If there was merit in copying one edition of sutra, how much more merit would there be in printing a hundred or a thousand copies, perhaps in less time? In fact, the 'Diamond Sutra' became a standard text for printing by those seeking "merit," or punya ~ Page 103

8 years ago. Edited 18 months ago.

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